Tar ball frequency data and analytical results from a long-term beach monitoring program

Following the spill of fuel oils from the New Carissa in February 1999, approximately 300 km of beaches on the Pacific coast of North America were surveyed. A long-term observation program focused on the documentation of stranded tar balls in the vicinity of the spill site. Systematic beach surveys which were conducted over the period March 1999 to April 2001 and semi-logarithmic scale, time-series plots proved the most useful format for identifying trends. Beach monitoring continued through to August 2001. by which time 212 tar balls had been analyzed by GC/MS for their chemical characteristics. The samples of tar balls collected between February 1999 and August 2001 were qualitatively compared with New Carissa source oils (NCSO) and 101 (48%) were not consistent with NSCO. The presence of tar balls that are not related to an incident can confound attempts to define cleanup or endpoint criteria and to assess possible injury to natural resources.     

Lead in corals: reconstruction of historical industrial fluxes to the surface ocean

Twentieth century environmental lead chronologies for the western North Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans have been reconstructed from annually-banded scleractinian corals. Measurements of lattice-bound Pb in sequential coral bands reveal temporal changes in surface water Pb concentrations and Pb isotopic distributions. Perturbations are observable in all specimens studied, attesting to global augmentation of environmental Pb by industrialization.In the western North Atlantic, Pb perturbations have occurred in direct response to the American industrial revolution and the subsequent introduction and phasing-out of alkyl Pb additives in gasoline. Surface ocean conditions near Bermuda may be reliably reconstructed from the coral data via a lead distribution coefficient of 2.3 for the species,Diploria strigosa. Based on²¹⁰Pb measurements, a similar distribution coefficient may be characteristic of corals in general. Surface Pb concentrations in the pre-industrial Sargasso Sea were about 15–20 pM. Concentrations rose to near 90 pM by 1923 as a result of metals manufacture and fossil fuel combustion. Beginning in the late 1940's, increased utilization of leaded gasoline eventually led to a peak concentration of 240 pM in 1971, representing an approximate 15-fold increase over background. Surface ocean concentrations are presently declining rapidly (128 pM in 1984) as a result of curtailed alkyl Pb usage. Lead isotopic shifts parallel the concentration record indicating that characteristic industrial and alkyl Pb source signatures have not changed appreciably in time. Industrial releases recorded in the Florida Keys reflect a weaker source and evidence of recirculated Pb (5–6 years old) from the North Atlantic subtropical gyre. An inferred background concentration of 38 pM suggests influence of shelf and/or resuspended inputs of Pb to these coastal waters.In remote areas of the South Pacific and Indian Oceans, industrial signals are fainter and the corals studied much younger than their Atlantic counterparts. Contemporary Pb concentrations implied by coral measurements (assumingK_D = 2.3) are 40–50 pM for surface waters near Tutuila and Galapagos in the South Pacific, and 25–29 pM near Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. A single coral band from Fiji (1920 ± 5yr) implies a pre-industrial surface water concentration of 16–19 pM Pb for the South Pacific. In view of reported surface water measurements and the North Atlantic coral data, the Pacific coral extrapolations may be slightly high. This could be a result of small variations inK_D among different coral genera, or incorporation of diagenetic Pb by corals sampled in coastal environments.     

Sediment toxicity in the Hudson-Raritan estuary: Distribution and correlations with chemical contamination

The Hudson-Raritan Estuary is one of several United States coastal areas where chemical data have suggested a potential for contaminant-related biological effects, and multiyear intensive bioeffects surveys have been conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The severity and spatial patterns in sediment toxicity were determined in an estuary-wide survey during spring 1991 using amphipods, bivalve larvae, and luminescent bacteria as test organisms. Spatial patterns in toxicity corresponded to the distributions of a number of toxic chemicals in the sediments. Areas that exhibited the greatest sediment toxicity included the upper East River, Arthur Kill, Newark Bay, and Sandy Hook Bay. The lower Hudson River adjacent to Manhattan Island, upper New York Harbor, lower New York Harbor off Staten Island, and parts of western Raritan Bay generally showed lower toxicity. Supporting chemical analyses of the sediments, including acid-volatile sulfide and simultaneously-extracted metals, suggested that metals were generally not the cause of the observed toxicity, with the possible exception of mercury. Among all contaminants analyzed, toxicity was most strongly associated with polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons, which were substantially more concentrated in toxic samples than in nontoxic samples, and which frequently exceeded sediment quality criteria.     

Detectors For Space Science

The design of detector systems for flight applications requires the consideration of a number of issues unique to space instrumentation. Flight detectors must endure hostile radiation environments and thermal extremes. Paramount importance is given to reliability since inflight replacement is at best difficult and usually impossible. Flight detectors are also significant cost and design drivers since they often determine key requirements for flight instruments such as volume, mass, power consumption, heat dissipation and communications budgets. In this paper we describe the primary concerns in developing flight detector systems, and review the challenges posed by future NASA and ESA space science missions for detector development.     

U.S. Mussel Watch: 1977–1978 results on trace metals and radionuclides

The results of the U.S. Mussel Watch Monitoring Program for the period 1976–1978 for trace metals and artificial radionuclides in bivalves are presented. The substances analysed included Ag, Cu, Zn, Cd, Ni, Pb, ²³⁸Pu, ^239+240Pu and ²⁴¹Am. The analyses of organic substances will be presented elsewhere. The concentrations of these substances in the bivalves may reflect upwelling processes, anthropogenic inputs or natural levels. Off the California coast, mussels show markedly elevated Pu and Cd concentrations in coastal areas adjacent to the most intensive upwelling zones. Elevated levels of Pb, for example, are found in organisms living adjacent to highly urbanized places. The general patterns of distribution repeat themselves year after year at a given site. Thus, it is concluded that annual monitoring activities may not be necessary and that a frequency of sampling of several or so years may be more appropriate to identify pollution problems. Finally, national or regional baselines for metal concentrations in bivalves from unpolluted waters are proposed. National baselines for Pb in the west coast mussels of 1·0 parts 10^?6 and for Ag in east coast mussels of 0·05 parts 10^?6 are suggested.     

Visual classification of very fine-grained sediments: Evaluation through univariate and multivariate statistics

Classifying very fine-grained rocks through fabric elements provides information about depositional environments, but is subject to the biases of visual taxonomy. To evaluate the statistical significance of an empirical classification of very fine-grained rocks, samples from Devonian shales in four cored wells in West Virginia and Virginia were measured for 15 variables: quartz, illite, pyrite and expandable clays determined by X-ray diffraction; total sulfur, organic content, inorganic carbon, matrix density, bulk density, porosity, silt, as well as density, sonic travel time, resistivity, and -ray response measured from well logs. The four lithologic types comprised: (1) sharply banded shale, (2) thinly laminated shale, (3) lenticularly laminated shale, and (4) nonbanded shale. Univariate and multivariate analyses of variance showed that the lithologic classification reflects significant differences for the variables measured, difference that can be detected independently of stratigraphic effects. Little-known statistical methods found useful in this work included: the multivariate analysis of variance with more than one effect, simultaneous plotting of samples and variables on canonical variates, and the use of parametric ANOVA and MANOVA on ranked data.     

Bioenergy potentials from forestry in 2050

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the global energy production potential of woody biomass from forestry for the year 2050 using a bottom-up analysis of key factors. Woody biomass from forestry was defined as all of the aboveground woody biomass of trees, including all products made from woody biomass. This includes the harvesting, processing and use of woody biomass. The projection was performed by comparing the future demand with the future supply of wood, based on existing databases, scenarios, and outlook studies. Specific attention was paid to the impact of the underlying factors that determine this potential and to the gaps and uncertainties in our current knowledge. Key variables included the demand for industrial roundwood and woodfuel, the plantation establishment rates, and the various theoretical, technical, economical, and ecological limitations related to the supply of wood from forests. Forests, as defined in this study, exclude forest plantations. Key uncertainties were the supply of wood from trees outside forests, the future rates of deforestation, the consumption of woodfuel, and the theoretical, technical, economical, or ecological wood production potentials of the forests. Based on a medium demand and medium plantation scenario, the global theoretical potential of the surplus wood supply (i.e., after the demand for woodfuel and industrial roundwood is met) in 2050 was calculated to be 6.1 Gm³ (71 EJ) and the technical potential to be 5.5 Gm³ (64 EJ). In practice, economical considerations further reduced the surplus wood supply from forests to 1.3 Gm³ year⁻¹ (15 EJ year⁻¹). When ecological criteria were also included, the demand for woodfuel and industrial roundwood exceeded the supply by 0.7 Gm³ year⁻¹ (8 EJ year⁻¹). The bioenergy potential from logging and processing residues and waste was estimated to be equivalent to 2.4 Gm³ year⁻¹ (28 EJ year⁻¹) wood, based on a medium demand scenario. These results indicate that forests can, in theory, become a major source of bioenergy, and that the use of this bioenergy can, in theory, be realized without endangering the supply of industrial roundwood and woodfuel and without further deforestation. Regional shortages in the supply of industrial roundwood and woodfuel can, however, occur in some regions, e.g., South Asia and the Middle East and North Africa.     

Sphericity as a characteristic of solids from fossil fuel burning in a Lake Michigan sediment

The property of sphericity is used to identify some anthropogenic particles in a Lake Michigan sediment. Three classes of products from high temperature processes, primarily fossil fuel burning, have been isolated: charcoals, iron oxides and aluminosilicates. The morphologies, structures and surface characteristics are indicative of the combustion process.     

Depositional history of artificial radionuclides in the Ross Ice Shelf,Antarctica

The annual fluxes of artificial radionuclides (²³⁸Pu,^239+240Pu,²⁴¹Am,¹³⁷Cs,⁹⁰Sr and³H) from the atmosphere to the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica were determined from measurements in strata dated by²¹⁰Pb. Recognizable sources include the U.S. tests (Mike-Ivy and Castle Hill) in the early 1950s, the U.S.S.R. tests of the early 1960s, the SNAP-9A burnup of 1964 and the French and Chinese tests in the late 1960s and 1970s. There are several problems still awaiting resolution: the differences in atmospheric chemistries of fission products and of transuranics produced in weapons tests and the anomalous fluxes of²³⁸Pu to the ice shelf which do not appear to reflect a one-year stratospheric residence. There is no evidence for a smearing of the fallout record as a consequence of diffusion of these radionuclides in the glacial column.